Sudden loud, agonized screams shattered the peace. Reiko froze. The ball she’d just caught fell from her hands. Her heart stopped in terror, then began to race.

“What was that?” Midori said, looking toward the house, from which the noise had come.

An explanation occurred to Reiko. She rushed into the house, followed by Lieutenant Asukai and the others. They ran down the corridor to her chamber. Inside, the cabinet built into the wall was open. An armor-clad samurai stood in front of the cabinet, one arm thrust into it, the other beating wildly at the air while he screamed and his body jerked. He turned, his face ferocious with pain.

“Captain Ogyu!” Reiko said as she recognized him. He was the commanding officer of the squadron that protected her family’s quarters.

“You’re the spy!” Lieutenant Asukai exclaimed in disbelief and shock.

“No!” Ogyu roared.

But the truth was obvious. Ogyu had opened the secret compartment in which Reiko had hidden the book that named Sano’s “spies.” When Sano and his family had first moved into the estate, Masahiro had found the compartment, filled with a stash of gold coins that Yanagisawa had left behind when he’d been exiled. Now the book lay inside the compartment. Captain Ogyu’s fingers were touching the black silk cover. His hand was immobilized by a dagger stuck through its back, into the compartment’s wooden base. When he’d opened the compartment he’d triggered the trap, a hidden spring that had driven the dagger into his hand.

Reiko was so astounded by how well her plan had worked that all she could do was stand silent, her hand over her mouth. Midori took one look at the captive, whose blood welled around the dagger and spilled on the floor, and hustled the children away. “Wait!” Masahiro cried. “I want to see!”

Captain Ogyu stammered, “I was just-I thought-”

“You thought the book was a list of spies,” Lieutenant Asukai said. “You just wanted to steal it for Lord Matsudaira. Well, the book is a fake, this is a trap, and you fell for it.” He seized Ogyu by his topknot and banged his head against the cabinet for good measure. “Now we’ve caught you dead to rights.”

Captain Ogyu shouted curses. With his free hand he wrenched at the dagger’s handle. He begged, “Get it out of me! Let me loose!”

“Oh, we will,” Asukai said. “But don’t be in such a hurry. What’s going to happen to you next will hurt a lot worse.”

When Sano and his entourage arrived back at Edo Castle, a sentry at the main gate said, “General Isogai wants to see you.”

General Isogai was the supreme commander of the Tokugawa army. He owned the loyalty of thousands of troops, and he’d pledged their military support to Sano. No matter that Sano had important things to do, he couldn’t brush off his chief ally.

He found General Isogai at the Tokugawa army’s central headquarters, located in a turret that rose up from a wall within Edo Castle, high on its hill. The turret, a square structure faced with white plaster, was crowned with tile roofs that protruded above each of its three stories. General Isogai had an office at the top. Inside, swords, spears, and guns hung in racks on the walls, alongside maps of Japan on which army garrisons and main roads were marked. General Isogai paced the floor like a soldier in a drill. He had a squat, heavily muscled figure and the appearance of no neck between his thick shoulders and his ovoid head.

“Greetings, Sano-san,” he said in a voice loud enough to carry across a battlefield.

Sano returned the greeting; they exchanged bows. He noted that General Isogai didn’t invite him to sit or offer him a drink. “Why did you want to see me?”

General Isogai’s thick lips smiled; his eyes glinted with wits and good cheer. “Always ready to get right down to business, aren’t you? No wasting time. That’s what I always liked about you.”

Sano noticed that General Isogai had spoken in the past tense. “I suppose you’ve heard that my mother is in Edo Jail for murder and I’m three days away from execution for treason.”

“Everyone’s heard.” General Isogai’s expression sobered. “The news is halfway across the country by now.”

“Somehow I don’t think you called me here to sympathize with me,” Sano said in a tone that prompted the other man to state his business.

“I do offer my sympathy,” General Isogai said, feigning hurt. “Rotten luck for you and your mother. Wouldn’t wish that on my own mother, may she rest in peace. I’m not totally without a heart.”

“But?”

“But there’s something I have to tell you.” General Isogai spoke with the air of a judge delivering a death sentence: “I can’t support you any longer.”

Although Sano had expected as much, he felt as if the loss of General Isogai and the Tokugawa army had knocked his legs out from under him. He couldn’t hide his bitterness as he said, “You were among the men who pushed me to challenge Lord Matsudaira. You led me to believe you’d stand by me. And now you back out at the first sign of trouble.”

General Isogai bristled at Sano’s hint that he was a quitter and a coward. “So I encouraged you. It was your decision, and you were aware of the risks. You know that the wind can change at any moment; alliances aren’t necessarily forever. Any man who doesn’t is a fool.”

“Better a fool than a rat,” Sano said evenly.

General Isogai grinned and spread his hands to show that the offense intended hadn’t been taken. “Rats are smart. They know to leave a sinking ship. If I’m a rat, I’m not the only one. Uemori Yoichi and Ohgami Kaoru asked me to convey a message to you.” Those men were Sano’s allies on the Council of Elders, Japan’s chief governing body. “They can no longer afford to be associated with you, either.”

This was how it felt to be caught in a tornado, fighting to stand upright while one’s house and belongings were sucked away by the wind. But Sano didn’t protest or beg; that would display weakness, and it was no use.

“Then there’s nothing more to say.” Sano leveled a cold gaze on General Isogai and started toward the door.

“Nothing except good-bye,” General Isogai said, regretful yet pragmatic. “And good luck.”

When Sano came out of army headquarters, Hirata and the detectives were waiting for him. “What did General Isogai want?” Hirata asked.

Sano told them. Marume said, “That bastard!”

“It’s a good thing you found out before he and his fellow traitors could desert you on the battlefield,” Hirata said.

“You’re better off without them,” Fukida agreed.

But they knew, as did Sano, that he’d just lost more than half his faction. And Sano had even more pressing concerns. “Three days is long enough to lose the rest of my allies, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. Three days in Edo Jail could be the death of my mother even if I exonerate her. I’d better go there and make sure she’s all right.”

As he and his men mounted their horses on the path that ran along the top of the castle wall below the covered corridors, a patrol guard strolled toward them. The guard saw Sano, paused, and said, “Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain. I’ve just heard there’s trouble at your estate.”

Sano, Hirata, and the detectives rushed home. Leaping off his mount at the gate, Sano called to the sentries, “What happened?”

“Lord Matsudaira’s spy has been caught,” said one of the men.

Marume and Fukida exclaimed in surprise. The sentries opened the gate, and as Sano rushed in it, he asked, “Was anyone hurt?” His heart filled with anxiety about Reiko and the children.

The guard captain on duty met Sano in the courtyard. “Your family is safe,” he said, running alongside Sano, Hirata, and the detectives. “The situation’s under control.”

He led them inside the mansion, to the private quarters. They arrived to see a group of soldiers leading out a man Sano recognized as Captain Ogyu. Ogyu’s right hand was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. When the soldiers stopped him in front of Sano, he hung his head rather than meet Sano’s eyes. Huddled against a wall nearby were Lieutenant Asukai and Reiko. They looked relieved and triumphant.